All-wheel drive skid-steer loaders have gained in popularity due to their compact size and maneuverability. The conventional skid-steer loaders are configured so that a variety of separate attachments can be coupled thereto such as an excavator bucket, a scarifier, a dozer blade, etc.
Oftentimes when using a skid-steer loader with a bucket attachment, it is necessary to break-up hard ground. Thus, an operator is required to stop the operation of the loader and physically remove the bucket to put on a scarifier having teeth to break-up compacted or hard ground. Many operators find this to be a great loss in work time and often choose to just break-up the ground with the bucket, thus creating additional costs and loss of time to repair/replace the misused equipment.
There are conventional buckets having teeth that protrude from the lower front edge of the bucket. These buckets work well when digging and ground-breaking are needed but, because the teeth are permanently fixed to the front edge of the bucket, the teeth hinder the process of smoothing and packing soil because the points of the teeth leave lines in the ground during back-dragging of the bucket.
My U.S. Pat. No. 6,546,650 discloses a bucket including a retractable scarifier so that the bucket can be used without obstruction from the scarifier when the scarifier is not required, and so that the scarifier can be employed when needed to break-up hard ground. A hydraulic cylinder or actuator is mounted generally vertically with respect to the rear wall of the bucket to cause movement of the scarifier teeth. Although these type of bucket/scarifiers are effecting in operation, it has been determined that bucket/scarifiers with the vertically mounted cylinder may not be employed on certain skid steers having oversized tires since the cylinder may interfere with the tires.
There is a need to provide a bucket having a retractable scarifier with an improved actuator mounting so that the bucket can be used on any type of powered device without obstructing components of the device.